Growing up with Romanian food, soup was basically never missing from any meal. It was served as the entree for lunch or dinner and sometimes even breakfast. Surprisingly a tomato soup was not one that I ever had growing up. I am not sure if its not a Romanian thing or if it was just one that mum never used to make. After learning how to cook most of the soups that mum used to make ( except for the meat ones cos I never liked those) I was actually at a bit of a loss on how to make tomato soup. I tried a couple of versions by thinning out some of the tomato based sauces I make with water or almond milk but they always seemed to turn out a little on the acidic side and not very much like the tomato soups I am used to eating when I order them at restaurants etc. It made me feel like tomato soups must have a lot of sugar added to them in order to help cut the acidity, and although I do add a little bit of natural sweetener like coconut sugar or maple syrup in my tomato sauces, I still do not like to add a ton! I just find that weird.

I stumbled across a youtube video from Liv’s Healthy Life that used sweet potato to add creaminess to a tomato soup and I thought it was the perfect addition to help cut out the acidity as well. I didn’t actually follow the recipe from the video since I forgot to write it down, but I am sure the ingredients are quite similar. It is my favourite way to make tomato soup now because I love the addition of sweet potato! It makes it a lot heartier, creamier and nutritious without adding a lot of fat. To be honest I need to eat more sweet potato so I am happy to find ways to add them in. I also took the opportunity to make some home made croutons because I had a weird loaf of rye bread lying around the house that I needed to do something with. It wasn’t the usual type of bread that we eat because I bought it when there was a cyclone scare in Townsville and all the supermarkets, bakeries etc were completely wiped clean of all bread. I literally had to buy whatever bread was left over (thankfully people always leave behind the dark stuff while all the white stuff gets cleaned out immediately), although we didn’t love it for the normal things we eat bread for it worked amazing for the croutons! Of course you can use any bread you wish. It won’t really matter. Hope you enjoy the recipe!

For the soup: begin by boiling your peeled and cubed sweet potato until soft and tender and set aside.

Gently fry the onion and garlic in a small pan in a little olive oil until soft and lightly browned ( careful not to burn the garlic).

Add boiled sweet potato, fried onion and garlic and tomatoes to a high speed blender and blend until smooth.

Transfer puree to a pot, add boiling water almond milk and basil and mix through. You can add more or less water/almond milk depending on the consistency you want for your soup. Season with salt and pepper to taste.

For the croutons, cut your bread into little squares.

Toss with olive oil, nutritional yeast, Italian herbs and salt and pepper. Mix well to combine

Lay out evenly on a baking tray and bake for about 15 minutes at 180 C. Keep your eye on the croutons so they do not burn. Cooking times may vary depending on the type of bread you use.